


Bits & Bobs

by lonelyroads



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Angst?, Birds, Christmas, Depression, Drinking, EXPLAINING THINGS: KIDDO EDITION, F/F, Fairy Tales, Geese, I Made Myself Cry, I swear this isn't as bad as it looks, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Magic, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Referenced Death, Regicide, Strong Female Characters, Suicidal Thoughts, Vampires, Werewolves, What makes a hero?, Wicked Stepmothers, Witches, happy feel goods, hell demons, horrible depiction of how people code things, rated T for language and sensitive topics, rocks, sorta misanthropic character?, space, ummmmmmmmmmmmmm, weird family dynamics?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-05-08 19:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14700408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelyroads/pseuds/lonelyroads
Summary: I dump my random stuff here. Most of it is finished. All of it (I hope) is short stories.





	1. geese

duck, duck, duck,  _run_.

little known fact about geese: every goose has its own portal straight to hell so it can torment people for eternity.

another fact: if a goose kills you, you go to hell, because maybe the goose won't follow.

_the goose is already there_

You will never escape the goose, for the goose is many, a host of devils unto itself.

The face of the goose is the face of evil, and it lurks in the parks of men,

watching. _waiting._

Someday, it _will_ get your sandwich.

And when it does, the world will shudder in fear, a tremor like the sound of a multitude of wings, echoing like a drawn out scream, and everyone will know.

Hide your potato chips.

Lock your doors.

Retreat to the fallout shelters.

The end is here, and it has feathers and leaves shit on your lawn.


	2. The Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> taking a peek at reverse-supernatural-horror tropes: the monsters are the good guys, legit and completely!

The Village   


There is a village, some say, where the monsters aren’t monsters and outsiders are regarded with suspicion. Those that do go in come out with stories of the vampire, who’s the local doctor; the werewolf pack, who carry weapons on their backs and flexible armor, patrolling the forest for trouble. 

 

The townsfolk carry iron and salt (who doesn’t, really? It’s common sense.) but never silver, and if you wait for an invitation to come in you’ll never get one. (The vampire never needed to be invited in; she helped build the houses, and they are as much her home as the store she keeps her medicines in.) 

When you ask the humans how they live with a vampire and werewolves and witches, they tell you that that is just the way things are, dontcha know?

The vampire is paid in blood, but only safely, only willingly given. She never drinks from children or the elderly, and gives a painless death to an terminally ill patient she cannot heal. If needed, she’ll hold their hand and kiss their forehead and  _ command _ them to sleep, the final sleep they’ll never wake up from. She’ll wait and hold their hand and when there’s no more pulse she’ll carefully drink. 

The children and most of the adults call her ‘Aunt’ or ‘Cousin’; nobody knows her relation to them (did she ever have kids, this ageless twenty-something?) but polite is better than sorry. 

The werewolves have their own table at the bar and a single room building at the inn, not because nobody likes them but because it’s hard to keep a werewolf pack in a bar with other people and not have a broken arm or two when someone challenges one of them to arm wrestle. The one-room building is so they can just pile in after the full moon, tired out and still big fluffy goofballs, sleep in a massive heap of doggy smiles and dream of rabbits.

 

There is a village, some say, where the monsters are kind.

 

She walks quietly through the night, guided by the small child tugging her arm. His father is sick, and his family has no money to pay, would she let them pay later, they do not have much. She laughs and tells him there is no charge; his mother is pregnant and his father is sick, and he and his sisters are young. 

 

They watch the moon rise from a boulder on the outskirts of town. They left their lover in bed sleeping without care. As the moon creeps over the horizon, they feel the shift starting, and when they jump from the tall rock it is four paws that hit the ground. The wolf looks through the trees and sees their pack approaching, running and jumping and smiling, big canine grins. 

 

The witch slumbers, the gentle light of candles illuminating his cauldron, bubbling with his mother’s recipe for chicken soup.

 

There is a village, some say, where the monsters are people too.


	3. The most wonderful time of the year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yeesh. This is where those implied/referenced suicide, depression, drinking tags come in.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s the most horrible time of the year again; the streets are filled with dirty slush, water drips from eaves (when it’s not falling on your head as giant chunks of ice) and toy companies are rolling in an influx of sales.

It’s Christmas, and you’re sitting alone at the bus stop on 3rd and 42nd, wondering how you got here, to this freezing bus stop alone at seven o’clock on Christmas Eve. ( _ Just like last year _ ,) your traitor brain supplies. You mutter into your itchy scarf, suppressing the urge to throw your phone across the road, staring at the screen. All your friends are posting pictures of their holiday celebrations, family selfies and obnoxious dinner pictures, all happy and just  _ fucking perfe- _

The phone shatters on the sidewalk.

There. Gone. Your only connection to your family, lying in pieces on cold concrete.

You want to die. It’s just that- that- everyone’s so  _ happy _ , and you’re just numb and angry. Your siblings hate you, your mother is dead and your father pretends you don’t exist, you’re a failure and you  _ know it _ , and maybe that’s the worst part, knowing you could have done better and knowing that this is  _ all your fault _ \- You don’t remember getting up, forcing tired legs forward, one step after another. You don’t remember starting to cry quietly into your scarf. You don’t remember the bus ride you (technically) paid for. But when you wake up in your shitty studio, with a bottle of cheap vodka in one hand and a splitting headache, all you feel is regret.

You should have been better. You should have tried harder. You should have listened more, been friendlier, gone to college longer, gotten a better job, made something out of your  _ pointless existence _ , should have should have should- 

(you should have cared about them. you should have asked what was wrong. you should have helped, when she said-)

This is it, you think. This is it. 

( _ Goodbye. _ )


	4. Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :(  
> fairytales, what makes a hero?

Heroes

She thinks, sometimes, that things could be better.

(She knows they could be worse, knows it in her blood and bones.)

As she walks down the street, notebook in one hand and a ballpoint in the other, she watches.

She listens on the subway, holding on to the metal pole and swaying with the train’s turns.

And from her apartment at night, she draws and writes, a world in black and white and shades of light. 

She is not a hero. 

Neither is he.

When he goes out, bedraggled shirt and wrinkled trousers, listens to the patron’s lives, worries and hopes spilling out.

He stays in his cubicle, crunching numbers and writing code, sweating in a suit and tie.

He thinks he codes in his sleep, sometimes, and wakes up with echoes of dreams and faint lines impressed in his memory. He writes all of them down.

He is not a hero.

 

(What makes a hero?)

(Is it acting for others before oneself?)

(Is it trying, over and over, to make things right?)

(Or is it something else, seen only in people who are long dead, unable to tell their own tales?)

(hero:  a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.)

(But that isn’t all, is it?)

(What makes a hero?)

(She draws, night after night, hoping that this next one will be the one, barely paying the bills and calling agency after agency. None of them call back.)

(He sometimes thinks he’s lost himself in his job, that it has twisted chains into him, pulling him down and down and down. But his project, his child, the only thing he knows is really his needs him to keep going, one more step, one more day.)

Neither of them are happy, they have slain no monsters, rescued no damsels, gotten no happy endings. This world is not so kind. This world pulls you in, sinking hours of your time into things you hate and money for people you’ll never see. This world is real. Somewhere, there’s a kid with a magic sword, slaying dragons and saving princesses. Not here. Never here. This world has cracks and dusty corners, alleyways abandoned for years. This world has a woman with a pen and paper, dreaming of a better future. This world has a man, slowly dying in a nine-to-five, watching his greatest creation slowly come to life.

This world has no happy endings, but the story continues, and that has to be enough.


	5. space rocks???

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...space rocks.

Explaining SPACE to an eight-year-old

there is a rock

hurtling through space

orbiting a larger rock, one with water

the larger rock is orbiting a ball of fire

that ball of fire is billions and billions of miles away from the next ball of fire.

there are trillions of these fireballs, spinning around a hole that maybe used to be a fireball, but is now just really hungry

and that collection of fireballs and the big hole

is a Very Big Place

and we call it the Milky Way, because astronomers like cows and also roads.

The Milky Way is just one of a Really Large Number of Very Big Places, and all the Very Big Places are in the Very Biggest Place, which everyone calls the universe because the person who named it was a college student but didn’t want to be.

There’s a really big debate about how the Very Biggest Place was made, but the Super Smart People aren’t thinking about that. They want to know if people can live on other Large Rocks. The Large Rock that Super Smart People think Space Humans will live on is called Mars, because the Old Italians were on a rebranding spree and renamed A Bunch Of Greek Gods That Nobody Believes In Anymore. Anyway, Mars is a Large Rock, but it’s also a Large Red Rock That Is Actually Very Dusty And Also Has Really Cold Water. That’s a really long name though, so we’ll just call it the Big Red Space Rock. Because the Big Red Space Rock has Really Cold Water, Super Smart People think that Space Humans can live their without our Large Rock sending lots of Regular Water for the Space Humans and Space Plants. Super Smart People also think that there’s lots of Shiny Grey Rock on the Big Red Space Rock, but it all turned into Not-Shiny Red Rock because it doesn’t like What We Breathe. The Big Red Space Rock doesn’t have enough of What We Breathe to let us breathe, so Space Humans would have to squish What We Breathe into Big Cans and take the Big Cans with them on their Space Planes. Space Planes take more fuel than Regular Planes, because it’s harder to go up than sideways. Also, some Space Planes have landed on the Smaller Rock In The Sky. The Space Humans in those Space Planes have walked on the Smaller Rock, and one left a Country Cloth. Country Cloths move in the wind on our Large Rock, but the Smaller Rock doesn’t have wind, so the Country Cloth is held up with Thin Metal Strips. 

Space is very interesting, but also scary.

There is Invisible Light that can make you very sick, but Super Smart People are trying to fix that with Space Plane Walls and also Space Clothes.

In short, our Large Rock has a Smaller Rock orbiting it, the Large Rock and the Large Red Space Rock and also other Space Rocks go around a Ball Of Fire. The Ball Of Fire is Really Far Away from other Balls Of Fire, and there is a Big Hole that wants to eat everything. 

All of that stuff is in a Very Big Place, but there are lots and lots of Very Big Places, which all stay in the Very Biggest Place.

One day that will all collapse into A Really Big Hole, but you’ll be dead by then, so don’t worry about it.


	6. Queenly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should probably be its own work but eh im lazy

_ Queenly _

She marries the Prince; when her stepmother and -sisters are executed for treason it is a quiet affair. When the Prince-now-King dies, stabbed through the heart- it was an assassin, she says. I tried to save him, she says, and wears black because he was kind. Her hands tingle, scrubbed immaculately clean, and later her thighs do as well- her daughter-that-wasn’t died in birth. Her people mourn, but their queen has much to do. She searches out magic, remembering a kind fairy a few short years ago. She learns a bit, sends sparks to the hearths of her people in the winter, ensures the harvests are bountiful. Three busy years after the King dies, she remarries; her new husband is weak and sad, his wife dead after birthing their daughter. She is jealous, almost, and he dies soon. This world is not kind to a woman without a ring on her finger; nobles and peasants alike start to grumble. She speaks to her mirror, keeping abreast of the rumors of rebellion. Eventually, she orders the huntsman to take her stepdaughter to the forest to hunt. He brings back a heart; it is not a human’s, but it will do. Her subjects believe the girl dead, the spoilt brat. She knows where the girl is, of course; the mirror doesn’t show her reflection. When she learns of the Prince coming to her lands, she takes matters into her own hands. The girl chokes, corset laced tighter than any human could survive. The girl falls, poison racing through her veins. And then finally the girl dies, poisoned apple cutting her breath from her lungs.

And this time she learns. Her stepdaughter is brought to the castle and locked away; not in the tallest tower but in a nondescript closet in the Queen’s rooms. The day she stirs and opens her eyes is a day of panic before the witch arrives. The witch-fairy puts the girl to sleep for good; they both agree there will be no ‘true love’s kiss’ nonsense here. The dragon-fairy leaves, a crow on her shoulder and crystal-crowned staff in her hand. The dwarves never tell the Prince of the lovely girl who kept their house for a few short weeks; dead men tell no tales.

She knows she is not a good person, but she also knows that this place would kill her if it could. Love is for women who don’t have empires, but oh, she loves anyway. The fairy-witch, the birds and mice that roam the palace halls (she never lost that gift; mice and rats are wonderful spies. Did that little girl really think they stayed by her side out of  _ love _ ? The Queen rescued them, and they remember.) When her dragon-witch (her friend, her maybe-love) is struck down, she is the one to marshall her armies and attack. Their opponents stand no chance, and after a series of desperate, bloody battles she recovers her friend’s comatose body, nursing her back to health. But she cannot be at the fairy’s side at all times; when traders bring back silks and spices, she is there; when they bring back tales of kingdoms full of nothing but sand she is there; when they ask for patronage, she is there and she gives her blessing. She learns of a city built of marble and mud and gold, ruled by a once-thief and an Empress denied the throne by an ancient edict. She sends a friend-gift to the foreign Empress; a mirror the twin of her own, spelled to bring light and sound from one side to the other. They talk day and night, and she learns the Desert Empress holds the throne in all but title; magic is something she has in spades, this sand-child. Her husband, she says, is there to look pretty and say what she tells him to. When her lover-friend awakens, she is told of a magic item that summons spirits able to bend the world to their summoner's wishes.

Three wishes, the Desert Empress says, and she exchanges a glance with her fairy-lover and smiles.

Who needs wishes anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes that is cinderella becoming snow whites stepmom, killing snow, falling in love with maleficent, meeting jasmine and ruling half of the known world because fuck disney happily ever after is boring


End file.
